Then, my correction was interrupted for the second time.

Mum asked me: “Tell me, Daniel, has this also happened before?”

I didn’t have an answer for that and Mum correctly took my silence as a confession.

She began slippering me again, and beat me until I literally had no more tears to give.

I was left like a limp rag draped over her knee, and my backside was incredibly sore.

Finally, the slipper came down for a final time and she rested it against my behind.

I was shocked to notice through my throbbing buttocks that the sole of Mum’s slipper was now warm from the smacking it had just administered.

Mum let me up from her knee and put the slipper back on her foot.

“Now, young man,” she said, “you will stay in your bedroom for the rest of the weekend.

And tomorrow, I will spank you again at bedtime, for deliberately hiding your school troubles.

If you are smacked in school in future, I expect to be told – and you can expect the slipper every time.

Do you understand?”

I nodded, feeling my bottom continue to throb as I did so.